Most executives today feel like they have done all they can to reduce healthcare costs by redesigning their health plan and cutting benefits. Today CFO’s have to look at lowering healthcare costs the same way they do other areas of their business. How can you move variable costs of today’s healthcare expenses on to a fixed cost model?

Here’s how WhiteGlove can make a substantial difference in your bottom line.

We do not file claims for any of our visits or the generic Rx medications that we prescribe.

We eliminate 75% of the expense of urgent care and emergency room use for primary care.

We reduce the number of times employees are absent from work for medical matters.

We lower the likelihood of large surprise claims hitting your health insurance plan.

We can turn your variable expenses for both employees and dependents into affordable, fixed costs. And your employees will love the “house call” benefit from day one.

We see some employers trying to provide different healthcare benefits and/or premiums based on the risk profile of their employees and dependents. For many employers, this is too big a jump. While it’s impressive that Safeway has been able to flatten their healthcare spend over 4 years while most everyone else’s is rising, they have not been able to lower it. Isn’t that the real goal for employers?

The truth is that there is only so much an employer can do with healthplan redesign. In the end, the employer’s healthcare costs are a variable cost line item and driven by:

1. How often their employees and dependents seek care;

2. Where their employees and dependents go for care;

3. How many unnecessary procedures are performed on their employees and dependents?

4. How many unnecessary brand Rx meds are consumed by their employees and dependents?

5. When their employees and dependents need care and the options available at that time?

And most of these factors are truly out of the employer’s control. What it is going to take is the advent of healthcare providers that have the courage to bring change and innovation to healthcare that lowers the overall cost of care for the employers and their employees and dependents WHILE improving the healthcare experience!

And that is exactly what we do at WhiteGlove House Call Health. We are attacking 75% of the healthcare spend for employers and their employees/dependents and lowering it! While, at the same time, delivering an exception healthcare experience and improving the productivity of their employees. We are turning a variable, out-of-control cost for most organizations into a fixed, affordable, transparent cost.

With the addition of Phoenix, Arizona, WhiteGlove House Call Health has expanded its service area once again, effective January 1, 2011. “It is exciting to take another step forward in our vision of making our service available nationwide.” said Robert Fabbio, chief executive officer and founder of WhiteGlove House Call Health. WhiteGlove now offers its unique healthcare services in seven major metro markets: Austin, Houston, Dallas, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Boston and Phoenix.

WhiteGlove does for healthcare what other membership-based businesses do – provide higher quality products and services at lower cost to their members. But in the case of WhiteGlove the “product” is healthcare. WhiteGlove provides its members with a higher quality, lower cost healthcare experience that comes to them 365 days a year, 8am to 8pm.

WhiteGlove membership is available to any and all individuals and companies within WhiteGlove’s service areas, even if they have no health insurance. For companies, WhiteGlove helps lower the cost of healthcare for their employees/dependents, lower business disruptions, improve employee productivity, and lower the likelihood of large surprise claims. When employers engage in WhiteGlove’s Corporate Membership Program, giving their employees and dependents access to WhiteGlove services, their healthcare spending is lowered – WhiteGlove does not file claims against their health plan for its visits or the generic Rx medications prescribed on the visit.

There is no known cure for a cold or the flu, so prevention is the name of the game from November through April (cold and flu season). Cold and flu viruses are often passed along from person to person and surface to surface in the workplace, at home and at school. According to the CDC, people are most contagious during the first 2-3 days of contracting a cold; and almost immediately and for about 5 days thereafter–even before symptoms develop– after contracting the flu.

A proactive approach to warding off colds and flu can make your whole life healthier. You can’t cure them, but they are not inevitable.

Anyone who wants to reduce the likelihood of becoming ill with the flu or spreading flu to others should get a seasonal flu shot.

Other preventive techniques for cold and flu include:

2. Wash Your Hands

Most cold and flu viruses are spread by direct contact. Someone who has the flu sneezes onto their hand, and then touches the telephone, a desktop, or a kitchen glass. The germs can live for hours or even weeks on a surface, only to be picked up by the next person who touches the same object. So wash your hands often, for at least 15-20 seconds, with soap. If no sink is available, sanitize with an alcohol-gel hand sanitizer.

3. Clean shared items

Any surface that multiple people come into contact with is a potential source of flu or cold viruses. Wipe down phones, keyboards, handles and doorknobs with alcohol wipes or other sanitizer- type wipes.

4. Don’t Cover Your Sneezes and Coughs With Your Hands

Germs and viruses cling to your bare hands, so covering coughs and sneezes with your hands results in passing along your germs to others. When you feel a sneeze or cough coming, use a tissue, then throw it away immediately. If you don’t have a tissue cough or sneeze into your elbow rather than your hand

5. Don’t Touch Your Face

Cold and flu viruses enter your body through the eyes, nose, or mouth. Touching their faces is the major way people catch colds.

6. Drink Plenty of Fluids

Water flushes your system, washing out the poisons as it rehydrates you. If you reuse your water bottle, be sure to wash it out daily. Do not share bottles, cups or straws with anyone.

7. Take a Sauna

Researchers aren’t clear about the exact role saunas play in prevention, but one 1989 German study found that people who steamed twice a week got half as many colds as those who didn’t. One theory: When you take a sauna you inhale air hotter than 80 degrees, a temperature too hot for cold and flu viruses to survive.

8. Get Fresh Air

Fresh air is important, especially in cold weather when indoor heating dries you out and makes your body more vulnerable to cold and flu viruses. Also, during cold weather more people stay indoors, which means more germs are circulating in crowded, dry rooms.

9. Do Aerobic Exercise Regularly

Aerobic exercise speeds up the heart to pump larger quantities of blood, makes you breathe faster to help transfer oxygen from your lungs to your blood, and makes you sweat once your body heats up. These exercises help increase the body’s natural virus-killing cells.

10. Eat Foods Containing Phytochemicals

“Phyto” means plants, and the natural chemicals in plants give the vitamins in food a supercharged boost. So eat dark green, red, and yellow vegetables and fruits.

12. Eat Yogurt

Some studies have shown that eating a daily cup of low-fat yogurt can reduce your susceptibility to colds by 25 percent. Researchers think the beneficial bacteria in yogurt may stimulate production of immune system substances that fight disease.

13. Don’t Smoke

Statistics show that heavy smokers get more severe colds and more frequent ones. Even being around smoke profoundly zaps the immune system. Smoke dries out your nasal passages and paralyzes cilia, the delicate hairs that line the mucous membranes in your nose and lungs that sweep cold and flu viruses out of the nasal passages. Experts contend that one cigarette can paralyze cilia for as long as 30 to 40 minutes.

14. Cut Alcohol Consumption

Heavy alcohol use destroys the liver, the body’s primary filtering system, which means that germs of all kinds won’t leave your body as fast. The result is, heavier drinkers are more prone to initial infections as well as secondary complications. Alcohol also dehydrates the body — it actually takes more fluids from your system than it puts in.

15. Relax

There’s evidence that when you relax, your interleukins — leaders in the immune system response against cold and flu viruses — increase in the bloodstream.

16. Avoid close contact with anyone who has a cold or flu

Although you can’t always tell when someone has a cold or the flu, if it seems obvious, avoid him or her. If a co-worker is ill, take steps to clean any shared surfaces, such as the coffee maker or door handles.

17. Avoid contact with known allergens

Allergies affecting the nose or throat may increase the chances of getting a cold or flu.

18. Let fresh air into your home at least once a week even if it is extremely cold outside.

Studies have shown that the air inside your home is 2 to 5 times worse than the air outside. Allowing fresh air in will help to get stale, unhealthy air out and fresh air in!

19. Avoid kissing on the lips of you feel yourself getting sick.

This includes your children as well as significant others!

20. STAY HOME IF YOU ARE SICK!

If you are sick, stay home till your contagious period passes. And with WhiteGlove House Call Health membership, you can stay home, even if you need medical care.

Your records and lab results are stuffed into paper folders in a filing cabinet at all of the providers you go to?

Your doctor is hard to see or isn’t available when you need him or her?

You are asked to fill out the same medical history paperwork over and over again?

You are unknown to a medical care provider in another part of town when your doctor is not available?

We think it is, so we’ve done something about it for our members! WhiteGlove delivers a high-quality healthcare experience while lowering your out-of-pocket costs. Most regular doctors’ offices do not have the technology in place to keep up with medical records electronically. Therefore they have you fill out the same paperwork at every visit in order to make sure it is up-to-date. But WhiteGlove has made a significant investment in technology that makes them different than most medical care providers. Every WhiteGlove member has their own healthcare portal that is accessible from the web, iPhone, and iPad. So not only is your current medical history available to the WhiteGlove healthcare providers, your medical history, lab results, visit history, Rx medications, allergies, and all of your expenses are all available to you 365 days a year.

Other benefits of using WhiteGlove for your primary care include:

Access to affordable medical care 365 days a year – Any day of the year, if you need medical care, you can call WhiteGlove and they are available to see you in your home or work from 8am to 8pm. They’ve made medical care convenient and affordable. No hassles, no running around, no high costs.

Access to your own healthcare portal, 24/7, via the web, iPhone and iPad

Referrals – Like any other medical care provider, WhiteGlove is able to refer you to a specialist when needed.

With WhiteGlove, we provide systematic, consumer-centric, coordination of medical care where we function as a single source for your primary care needs.

Want to find out more about how WhiteGlove is bringing change and innovation to healthcare? Visit the WhiteGlove House Call Health website at www.whiteglove.com or give them a call at 877-329-8081.